Both patents and rewards face the race to be first, it should not be a factor when deciding between the two
Shavell & Van Ypersele, 01 --- *Harvard Law School and National Bureau of Economic Research, AND ** University of Namur and Catholic University of Louvain (October 2001, Steven Shavell and Tanguy Van Ypersele, “Rewards versus Intellectual Property Rights,” Nexis-Uni, ZK)
Race to Be First. The optimal magnitude of the reward would be affected in practice by a consideration that we did not study in our model: the race among potential innovators to be the first to innovate. As is emphasized in the literature on patent, this race leads to the possibility of overinvestment in research because the private return to being first may exceed its social value. 39 Likewise, under a reward system, there would be a race to be first, and it might lead to excessive investment in research, lowering the optimal [*543] reward. Because the race to be first is a factor that afflicts both systems, and because the information needed to address it under either seems to be of the same character, consideration of the race to be first does not seem to bear on the comparison between reward and patent. 40